“SIGNS OF DEATH.”

Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 3, 6 September 1909, Page 2

“SIGNS OF DEATH.”

It may be remembered that several well-known men in recent years left instructions i n their wills that before they were buried the jugular vein should be opened, or the vertebrae severed, in order to ensure that death had really taken place. Edmund Yates was one of them. Someone has been sounding Dr. L! . IL K. Dabbs as to whether he thinks sufficient, care is always exercised as to satisfying oneself that death had really taken place, and he refers to the subject in" Fry's Magazine "I am quite prepared to admit that in times of mediaeval epidemic, errors may have happened, but I am only saying wh a t I believe when 1 state that I do not think there is risk in modern Europe of such a thing occurring. I may confess at once that until we reach putrefaction ! there is n o absolute sign that death j has taken place. All tests (atro-.l pine in the eye, and so on) are, so 1 far as I know, subject to the limit*- ! tions of error." I)r. Dabbs believes that all due care is exercised, and that—in modern England, at all events—the signs of death are considered as established before burial is permitted. !